Anna chose to perform ” This Place has Seen….” as a” duet” with Mark in this very special spoken word showcase. Originally generated under the circular navigation aid at Berry Head National Nature Reserve the piece offers glimpses into hidden worlds.

We invented this Place-Dreamer Tool siting next to a bubbling brook at the foot of Cuilcagh Mountain in the Marble Arch Caves Geopark during our DREAMING PLACE residency. You can read some of what we wrote that day here. “This Place Has Seen” also features in our Radio Dreaming broadcasts and you can read all about this and other “free writing” tools in the Place-Dreamer Toolkit here.

To use “This Place Has Seen” yourself:

Sit comfortably in a place that you want to get to know better.

Have pen and paper at hand.

Use the phrase, “This Place Has Seen” as a prompt for your imagination, intellect and psyche to delve into the known, unknown and imagined history of the place where you are sitting to retrieve images and snippets of its past.

Write down whatever comes to mind, unedited.

Have a look and see what you’ve written. It may surprise you.

We’d love to hear about your experience if you try using “This Place Has Seen”.

During our stop with the Pod at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre, we met artist in residence, Phoebe, who is also a poet and musician. She invited us up to her second floor studio above the print rooms to listen to her play her ukulele.

Between Phoebe’s lovely, descriptive song and the rare Irish afternoon sunshine streaming in the window, we were charmed to be sure!

Usually Automatic Writing and Free Writing are considered to be two distinct practices, however we practice a combination of the two as part of our Place-Dreamer Toolkit.

According to Wikipedia “Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer claims to be produced from a subconscious, and/or external and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.”

Wikipedia defines Free Writing as a “prewriting technique in which a person writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic. It produces raw, often unusable material, but helps writers overcome blocks of apathy and self-criticism. Unlike brainstorming where ideas are simply listed, in freewriting one writes sentences to form a paragraph about whatever comes to mind.”

We use Free-Writing techniques combined with an aspect of the intention of Automatic Writing: we agree on a set amount of time in which to write continuously and we do not stop to correct spelling or grammar and we often agree on a starting phrase to get us going. The “Dreaming Place ” part of the tool is the location where we write and the approach that we take there. This goes back to the quote that inspired this project:

“There is an early Celtic tradition that the earth remembers everything, perhaps accounting for what some call “dreams of place,” in which the land speaks through the dreamer.”

When we write, we write “In Place”, immersing ourselves in the environment and the unseen histories and personalities of that place. We allow our unconscious/subconscious to dictate the words that we write. What comes out is often interesting.

Below is a short excerpt from a free writing session that we did along the road up to Culcaigh Mountain. It is a combination of phrases from both Anna and Claire’s writing:

This place has seen every shade of green, turmoil under its roots, darkness falling from the sky in a blaze, a tiny man in a waistcoat silhouetted against a white horse, an epic game of chess, a knife blade broken in two, sun-warmed oats sprinkled into a hollow, layering of memories on bones and seeds and quietness.

We have posted other examples of this technique HERE and HERE. Give it a try! See what happens. Let us know what you find….

They are what happen when you are not looking. They take you by surprise. They are “gifts from the gods of the moment.” Chance encounters smell of sweet spontaneity, taste of salty saturation, feel like a hand-carved walking stick, sound like the chirp of the oracle wren and look like the two botanists that we happened to meet on our way up Cuilcagh Mountain. They are offspring of time and possibility, cousins to choice and the grandparents of adventure. They are the fruit of diligent openness after a season of true patience. They are people, places, creatures and things met on roads and under bridges; shared thoughts and coincidental gestures. They are a collision of time, place and invisible intention. They are ground for invention and the willingness to fail or be unseen and forgotten. Chance encounters give rise to shared experience, information exchange and sometimes realizations. While they are born of spontaneity, they require attention to be noticed and can be easily missed or “wasted” if eyes are closed or heads are down while walking the great road.

We dreamt our collaboration into existence with 4 legs, 2 noses and 2 x 6th sense.
During our traveling residency, we “dreamed the world” in our own collaborative image by encountering two headed animals.
A two headed, two armed kid on the ferry cavorting up on deck in spitting rain alerted us to our double headed state;
a donkey with two heads watched us pass from an emerald field,
a push-me-pully deer froze our gaze on the banks of Lough Oughter,
a double yellow kayak held us in its smile,
we laughed and cried,
the twin cultures of Cavan (Eire) and Fermanagh (N.Ireland) welcomed us,
we walked a bridge linking two cultures,
we spoke and were silent,
we dreamed by day and night,
we laughed at the double entendre,
we met Geopark officers from both sides of the border,
we found our way over and underground,
we listened to two trees kissing,
we remembered and we forgot,
we were lost and found,
we caught the landscape gazing at its reflection,
we experimented with ancient and modern,
we took photos of each other,
we followed a bifurcation,
we walked a ridge joining two borders,
we looked east and west,
we ate breakfast side by side,
we listened to the voices of two nations,
we spoke and listened,
we matched-up splitting images, played at duppies, captured mirror images with our cameras while the hills reflected in the sky,
we heard the drip, drip of water as it echoed into a cave,
we dreamt double,
we learned of old and new traditions,
we drew from twin imaginations,
we did science and art,
we pedaled sister bikes,
we heard how Bridget and her dad saw two houses where there was once one and thought they were tipsy,
we learnt Gallic and English names of towns and people,
our nostrils smelled in tendem,
we followed two rivers,We dreamt our collaboration into existence with 4 legs, 2 noses and 2 x 6th sense.
During our traveling residency, we “dreamed the world” in our own collaborative image by encountering two headed animals.
A two headed, two armed kid on the ferry cavorting up on deck in spitting rain alerted us to our double headed state;
a donkey with two heads watched us pass from an emerald field,
a push-me-pully deer froze our gaze on the banks of Lough Oughter,
a double yellow kayak held us in its smile,
we laughed and cried,
the twin cultures of Cavan (Eire) and Fermanagh (N.Ireland) welcomed us,
we walked a bridge linking two cultures,
we spoke and were silent,
we dreamed by day and night,
we laughed at the double entendre,
we met Geopark officers from both sides of the border,
we found our way over and underground,
we listened to two trees kissing,
we remembered and we forgot,
we were lost and found,
we caught the landscape gazing at its reflection,
we experimented with ancient and modern,
we took photos of each other,
we followed a bifurcation,
we walked a ridge joining two borders,
we looked east and west,
we ate breakfast side by side,
we listened to the voices of two nations,
we spoke and listened,
we matched-up splitting images, played at duppies, captured mirror images with our cameras while the hills reflected in the sky,
we heard the drip, drip of water as it echoed into a cave,
we dreamt double,
we learned of old and new traditions,
we drew from twin imaginations,
we did science and art,
we pedaled sister bikes,
we heard how Bridget and her dad saw two houses where there was once one and thought they were tipsy,
we learnt Gallic and English names of towns and people,
our nostrils smelled in tandem,
we followed two rivers,
we minded and not minded,
we saw through the looking glass,
we worked with dual purpose,
we dreamed up past and future lives.
we minded and not minded,
we saw through the looking glass,
we worked with dual purpose,
we dreamed up past and future lives.

DREAMING PLACE is an experimental project by Anna Keleher (Devon) and Claire Coté (New Mexico), investigating dúlra – ecosystem; dúchas– heritage; aisling – dream. Based on an ancient Celtic tradition in which the land remembers everything, the project explores “dreams of place” and how lands speak through dreamers.

A wonderful project, reconnecting to and listening to inner/outer Nature is crucial in this time of ecological and ethical crisis.
-Colin Donoghue, NY

I just listened to Radio Dreaming and I enjoyed it so much. It was really beautiful and soothing to listen to because I could sense how "in the moment" you guys were through your voices. I need more stuff like that in my life; Inspiring and interesting and a bit higher up on the cultural ladder that my usual forms of entertainment.
-Jessica Scott, OR